


I Never Even Got To Tell Him

by awkwardauthoracts



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Blood, Character Death, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Self-Destruction, Slow Burn, Slurs, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 11:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16596707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardauthoracts/pseuds/awkwardauthoracts
Summary: Richie couldn't deal with Eddie's death, so he didn't. He threw himself back into 1957 before he even knew about It. Back when he was just twelve. Back when Eddie was alive.He called it coping.Mike called him crazy.





	I Never Even Got To Tell Him

Richie sat in his hotel room, his head in his hands. It was close to four a.m. and he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in almost three days. All he could think about was what Eddie didn't have time to say.

_"Richie," he whispered._

_"What?" Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately._

_"Don't call me Eds," he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richie's cheek. Richie was crying. "You know I... I..." Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died._

Richie could still feel Eddie's hand on his cheek. It was like a ghost's touch. The only reason he wasn't crying now was because he had run out of tears to shed. He was just numb. It hurt to think about what he lost. He would have given anything for just a moment more.

The world was only cruel to good people.

Eddie died before he could finish what he wanted to say. He didn't even get to have his last words. He didn't deserve to die down there. At his funeral, there would be no body. No one knew how to contact his wife, so she didn't even know about her husband's death. Not that Richie was really concerned about Myra Kaspbrak right now.

He laid down in his cheap and uncomfortable bed and pulled the sheets over his frame. It was too hot. He kept moving around, unable to find a decent position. Richie knew it was a fruitless endeavor; he wasn't going to fall asleep when Eddie was dead.

Just thinking about that string of words hurt like hell.

Eddie was dead.

He was gone.

He wasn't coming back.

Richie had sat there and cradled his bleeding body as he helplessly watched the life drain out of him.

He couldn't save Eddie.

Nothing was going to bring him back now.

But Richie would be  _damned_ before he forgot about him again.

Richie stood up and ran his fingers through his hair, ripping through the tangles. He grabbed only his room key before leaving the hotel. He left the building and tried to find his way around. He relied heavily on muscle memory, but Derry had changed so much over the years. It took almost an hour to get to the place he was looking for: Eddie's home. The FOR SALE sign is still in the front. Richie hadn't known that Sonia Kaspbrak had died until just over a week ago.

Richie touched the front door and it opened slowly with a creek. He immediately went upstairs to Eddie's room. He was instantly shoved down memory lane.

_"Richie!" Eddie squealed, his ten-year-old voice echoing throughout the Sonia-less house. "Stop it! Stop it!"_

_Richie grinned wildly, his fingers tickling Eddie madly. "Never!"_

_Eddie rolled around on the floor, his asthma (which they would both later learn wasn't even real) not showing in the slightest. He was gasping for air between laughs and half-heartedly trying to push Richie away. Richie was on his knees, which both had a nasty carpet burn from sliding around for the past few hours. Both of them were redder than the flowers Sonia had growing out front. They were only for looking, though. Eddie had severe allergies, you know. (Eddie didn't have allergies at all. Richie did, though. Eddie thought it was hilarious when Richie couldn't stop sneezing or rubbing his runny nose after playing in the grass. Since Eddie thought it was funny, Richie kept doing it.)_

Thinking about that just made him sad.

The room was empty, save for the bed frame, desk, and wardrobe. It was all dusty. No one had been in there in years, it seemed. Richie wasn't sure why he went there; all it did was bring back painful reminders of what he had lost. Of  _who_  he had lost.

_Richie and Eddie sat on the latter's bed, Eddie laying across Richie so that he hung off both sides of the bed. The room was quiet, a rare occurrence with Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier around. After only a few moments of silence, Eddie spoke up._

_"Where do you see yourself in... ten years? When you're like twenty-five."_

_Richie saw himself married._

Richie's longest relationship had been just under two years. They were never very serious. He was forty-four.

_He saw himself in a nice home with a dog or two or seven._

Richie lived in a big empty house. He had a fish once. It died after a month.

_He saw himself happy._

Richie was crying again.

_"I dunno. Maybe California. Somewhere warm."_

At least he had gotten that part right.

_"What about you, Eds? What's the dream?"_

_"Don't call me Eds," Eddie replied, almost absentmindedly. "But I'd go to California, too. It'd be nice to get away from my mom."_

Eddie never got away from his mother. All he did was put a couple hundred miles between them. And then when Sonia died, Eddie married her incarnate.

_"That'd be cool. We could live together."_

_Richie had known that he wanted to live with Eddie for years. He was eleven when he first thought about kissing Eddie. It wasn't until he was fourteen that he accepted it. Even then, he had yet to tell Eddie about his feelings. He feared being written off as a joke, or worse, being shunned by Eddie. Richie knew Eddie wasn't queer. He had said time and time again he was straight when Bowers and his gang called him a cock-sucker. Bowers called Richie a four-eyed faggot, but Richie stopped denying it when he realized they were right. That may not have been the best idea, seeing as the name calling and beatings only got worse. But hey, at least he wasn't a hypocrite._

_"Yeah. We_ could  _live together."_

Richie tucked his head between his pulled up knees and held himself there. Tears fell down his face messily. He wanted to stop the memories, but he couldn't.

_Eddie and Richie laid on the floor, Eddie curled around Richie's frame. The two were soaked from having just walked in the rain, and Eddie refused to get his bed wet, but he was exhausted. He mumbled something Richie couldn't hear and fell asleep minutes later._

_Richie had known he liked Eddie for a long time, but that was the first moment when he realized he had fallen in love._

_It hurt._

It hurt.

Richie couldn't take it any longer. He got up off the floor (he hadn't even realized when he sat down) and left. He went back to his hotel room and laid down for a restless night of no sleep.

~

Richie sat up after a grand total of half an hour of unconsciousness. The bags under his eyes were almost purple. It was pathetic, but Richie did not give a flying  _fuck_  about his appearance.

Everyone else had flown back home. Ben, Beverly, Bill. Stan.

Stan hadn't made it to Derry though- no, he was fucking them all over by being dead and breaking their circle and it was his fault Eddie had to die. It was all Stan's fault that Eddie had to be a dumbass and get in the way and get his arm ripped off and torn to shreds like it was paper and fall over and bleed out in the dirty sewers and never get to finish what he was going to say and get buried under Derry so his casket would be empty. Stan was a coward who slit his own wrists with a blade or a knife or fuck, it could have even been with his own teeth but Stan wouldn't do that but he would write It on the wall in his own blood and force his wife and kids and family to see his body floating in the bathtub. Richie didn't even know if Stan had a wife or kids or family or what his job was or what his house was like or where he lived or if he was happy before he offed himself out of fear. He hoped Stan was happy. He wondered what it would have been like if Stan were with him. Richie wanted Stan to be with him because even if Eddie's death was inevitable, Stan's wasn't. God, Richie missed Stan and his stupid jokes and lame humor and sarcastic remarks and extreme hesitation and germaphobic ways and every other little quirk that Stan hated about himself and that Richie and Ben and Eddie and Beverly and Mike and Bill adored.

But Mike was still in Derry. Perhaps Richie should go see him.

Richie decided to go see Mike at the Derry Public Library. He also decided to walk. He wasn't sure how long it took him to get there, but he watched the sunrise and still got there before Mike did. He had to sit on the steps for a while.

"Richie?"

The man in question's head snapped up. "Yeah?"

"What are you still doing here? I thought you went home."

"I'm staying for the service."

Eddie's funeral service.

(That and he couldn't find it in him to go back to California and forget again. If he forgot again, then what was the point of all this? What would he do if he forgot Eddie again? What if he forgot Stan? Or Ben or Bill or Bev or Mike? All of this would have been pointless.)

"Oh, well... Do you want to come in?"

"Yeah. That'd be good."

Once they were inside, Mike took Richie into the little staff room and put on a pot of coffee. The soft hum of the machine was a pleasant white noise to blur Richie's intrusive thoughts. Mike didn't ask how Richie liked his coffee before handing him a mug.

"How'd you know how I take mine?"

"I never left Derry," Mike said with a casual shrug.

"Still, that's a long time to remember how I like my coffee. Almost thirty years." Richie took a sip. It was scorching, but underneath the burning sensation on his tongue, the drink was perfect.

"Well, it wasn't exactly hard to forget. You take just as much milk as you do coffee and three  _very_  generous spoonfuls of sugar."

Richie hummed happily in reply.

"I might as well have made you a milkshake," Mike added. That got a small chuckle out a Richie. (The first laugh he'd given since watching Eddie die.)

He needed to talk to Mike more often. Mike was good for the soul.

They drank in silence for a few moments before Mike broke it.

"So did you come by for any particular reason or just 'cause you wanted to?"

Richie thought about his answer. Why  _did_ he decide to show up?

"I'll be blunt, Mike. I'm suffocating in my own head. I can't stop reliving the past and it hurts because my past is full of you guys. It's full of  _him."_

Mike's eyes widened just a fraction.

"If that's the case, maybe you should get out of Derry. Just to a nearby town. That way you wouldn't be walking through your childhood again. You can come back for the funeral and then fly back to California."

Richie sighed heavily and said, "Mike, you know I can't do that. The second I leave Derry, I'll start forgetting. I bet if you call one of the others right now they won't be able to tell you your full name. They won't know where you work or what food we had the first night we all came here. Hell, I bet not a one of 'em remembers Stan."

"Richie! Don't say stuff like that."

"You know it's true. When you called me, I thought you were working for a dairy company and trying to sell me something useless."

"That was after over twenty years of you being gone and It was still alive. It's been less than a week and It's dead. You won't forget."

"Still," Richie huffed. "I don't wanna take any chances. I'm not leaving Derry." He moved to the sink where he filled his now empty mug with water dumped it down the drain. He had to constantly remind himself that there was nothing really there. Nothing in the sink. Nothing in the drains. Nothing in the sewer.

Eddie's corpse was in the sewer.

"If you're sure," Mike said, giving Richie a look. Richie ignored it and announced he should leave soon. They both knew that Richie had nothing to do until he got back home, but neither of them brought that to light.

Richie was once again wondering the streets of Derry, Maine. He walked past an ice cream parlor with no name out front. He walked past an arcade and roller rink. He walked past the pharmacy and turned around. He wanted ice cream.

The little bell rang as Richie opened the front door. A sleepy girl waved at him drowsily from behind the counter. She wasn't lazy, Richie could tell; she had just had a long night.

"What can I, uh... what can I getcha?" Her voice was low and gravelly. Her name tag had once said "Evan" but she had covered it so it only showed the first three letters.

Richie hastily glanced at all the flavors he was being offered, quickly settling on one called turtle. He found the name very fitting.

"I'll have the turtle one. Two scoops on a waffle cone."

"'Kay."

Eva began preparing Richie's cone, pouring the batter on the griddle. While it cooked in the background, she carved out two perfectly even spheres of ice cream. It was clear she had been working here for a while. She put everything together and gave Richie his treat. He handed her a five and told her to pocket the change. He sat down at one of the metal tables and began to eat his ice cream. It was quite good.

"Ya don' look familiar, an' I know e'rybody 'round here. Ya new er somethin'?"

Richie diverted his gaze from the floor to Eva. The room hadn't been quiet for all of thirty seconds. It seemed as if though she couldn't handle the silence, which was fine. Richie couldn't either, he had just learned to suck it up in recent years.

"No. I actually grew up in Derry. I'm back in town for-..." He couldn't exactly explain why he was back in town, but he didn't want to lie.

"For a funeral of an old friend. He was from here, too. Wanted to be buried where he started, I suppose."

Eva frowned slightly. "That's mighty sad. I'm sorry for yer loss. Where dya live now?"

Richie wasn't sure why this girl was throwing questions at him, but they seemed harmless enough.

"Beverly Hills. What about you? You don't sound like you're from around here, or even up north."

"Texan, born and raised," she said. Her smile was forced when she announced so, and Richie could really see the bags under her eyes. They were almost as bad as his own.

"Long night?"

This brought back her genuine grin. Eva put her hands on the counter and leaned over the glass some.

"Definitely. Told my folks 'bout ma girl last night. Took it real well."

"Your girl?"

"Ma girlfrien'." Eva's eyes narrowed, ready to defend herself against any inappropriate comments. Luckily, she would get none from Richie.

"I wish I had the courage to do that when I was your age."

"Ya got yourself a man, mister?"

Richie's pleasant expression broke.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. His name's Eddie and he's the one I'm lowering into the ground in a few days."

"'M s-"

"Sorry, I know." Richie knew he was being an asshole to this girl, but he wasn't about to allow himself to cry again. Not with company around. "I think I'll head out. Thanks for the ice cream."

Richie stood up, the metal chair scraping against the tile flooring. He left without another word.

He decided to go to the Quarry. He figured he could let himself cry there.

It was high noon when Richie finally arrived at the Quarry. He was hot and sweaty, despite the relatively cool temperatures. He walked up to the edge of the cliff he and the other Losers used to jump off of and looked off. The water was higher now; it was maybe twenty feet deep.

Richie had this little voice inside his head that said to jump for it. Jump into the water and don't come up for air. Inhale the water the way you used to inhale cigarette smoke. Sob as you sink to the bottom because you quit smoking for Eddie when you were seventeen. Think about how last time you tried to smoke, you had a panic attack, went home, made spaghetti,

_"Eddie Spaghetti!"_

_"Don't call me that!"_

and then never ate it. Think about how when you saw him for the first time in twenty-seven years, it was like he hadn't aged a day, but had seen hell and come back from it. Think about how you loved him when you were a child and then forgot about him. Think about how he's buried underneath your feet. Think about how he's dead and you're alive. Think about how you killed him because you didn't try hard enough.

Richie blinked.

He stripped himself of his clothes, leaving them on the ground. He didn't plan on coming back for them later. He stood only in his underwear, just like how they would all dress back then.

Richie backed up, took a running start and flung himself into the depths of the Quarry.

He quickly sank to the bottom, his toes touching the muddy bottom. He opened his eyes, unable to see more than a few fuzzy feet in front of him. He sat below the water, the ringing in his ears getting louder and louder until someone grabbed him underneath his arms and hoisted him out of the water.

Richie was fuming. He spun around to see who touched him and suddenly all his anger melted away. There, in the flesh, stood Stanley Uris, not a day over ten years old.

Richie's jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. His body shook and he gave a closed-lip smile. He could feel his front teeth awkwardly resting on his lower lip. He glanced down at his reflection.

He was twelve.

"Uh, Richie, are you okay?" Stan asked. His voice was high, not yet having dropped from puberty. Richie hadn't heard a sweeter sound in over two decades.

"Richie?"

The boy in question spun around.

"Eddie." He was speaking barely above a whisper.

Richie launched himself at Eddie, who was alive and well and ten whole years old. He took both of them under the water, to which Eddie replied by shoving him off and exclaiming, "what the hell?!"

Richie didn't care that Eddie was even a little bit angry. He just cared that he was  _breathing._ Richie was so happy, in fact, that he started trembling and he was crying. He must have died and gone to heaven because that's where he was.

Eddie gave Richie an odd look, which melted into concern.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Richie said, grinning, "absolutely nothing. I couldn't be better."

Eddie's eyebrows furrowed. "You're acting weird. And that's saying a lot because you're someone who says the word, 'chuckalicious' regularly."

Richie tried his best to act like he wasn't seeing Eddie with a beating heart for the first time in days.

"It's not my bad that you guys don't have my advanced  _vernacular."_

Even Stan didn't recognize the word.

"Your advanced  _what?"_

"Oh? You didn't know? I read through the dictionary in my free time. I have an impressive list of fancy words I like to use."

Eddie glanced over at Stan and Stan glanced over at Eddie. Neither of them believed Richie, but they let it slide. He didn't even get beeped.

Richie dove beneath the surface of the water, basking in his more nimble, and less fragile body. He swam below Eddie and picked him up on his shoulders.

"Chicken fight!" A feminine voice shouted from off to Richie's far left.

Richie turned his head and even though his eyesight was awful and he didn't have contacts in anymore, he could make out the shape of Beverly. She was glowing with youth.

Beverly rose out of the water on Ben's shoulders. From behind them, Richie could see Bill. Almost everyone was there. They were only missing Mike.

Eddie leaned forward on Richie's shoulders and the pair stumbled toward Bev and Ben. Richie was too busy taking in the situation, and Eddie fell down within ten seconds, taking Richie under when water with him. When Richie came back up for air, he was immediately insulted.

"Wuh-wow, you're a sha-sha-shit base, Ruh-Richie."

Richie had never been gladder to hear Bill's stutter in all his years.

"Yeah, what gives, bonehead?"

Richie melted at the sound of Eddie's voice. He couldn't even think of a witty comeback, he was too happy.

"You okay, Rich?"

"More than okay, Eds."

Eddie looked at him in disbelief. "Don't call me Eds. I think maybe you're waterlogged. We've been here for a while."

Richie only nodded. "Probably."

Eddie's expression was still flat and uncaring, but if you only looked a little deeper, you could see worry.

"Let's get outta here."

"Alright."

A few moments later, Eddie and Richie were sitting on some rocks they shoved together to make a little bench. They were both still sopping, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was Eddie. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

Eddie.

"Richie, what's gotten into you? You've been acting weird."

Richie wasn't about to say what had happened. Hell, he didn't even know. Was this all real? Was he hallucinating? Did he die? Was this It?

He answered as honestly as he could.

"I dunno."

"That's not an answer, Richie."

"It takes a lot of courage to admit that you don't know."

"What? Who told you that?"

Eddie told him that when they were seventeen. It was one of the last things he heard Eddie say before he forgot about everything.

"Someone who's pretty neat."

"They sound lame."

Richie almost laughed at that.

Then something dawned on him.

Before Eddie had passed on  _(he died he was fucking dead this was all fake there was no way this was real Eddie died and Richie held him while he bled out and he never got to finish no he had to go and fucking die and get buried under this shitty town fuck Eddie was dead he died he fucking died Richie couldn't handle this he was going to off himself he was going to kill himself no he couldn't do that Mike would find his body it would scar him for the rest of his life Eddie wouldn't want him to die he wouldn't want that he wouldn't no he wouldn't he couldn't do that he wouldn't no he)_ Richie hadn't gotten to tell him everything that he wanted to. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to do that. To tell him everything. Anything but nothing.

"Eds, I gotta make a confession."

Eddie's eyebrows screwed up and his face scrunched kind of like he had just bitten into a lemon.

"Uh... okay?"

"Ever since I was like maybe ten, whenever I'm around you I just-"

"Richie!"

Eddie and the boy in question turned around to see Mike Hanlon running toward them at full speed.

"Richie, come on!"

"What? Why? Where are you going?"

Mike didn't seem to hear him.

"Richie!"

Riche blinked and the rock he was sitting on had moss on it. Some of the trees were dead. He blinked again and Mike was older. Around forty. He blinked once more and he saw his hands age. He knew he wasn't young anymore.

He turned to Eddie and blinked.

He grew five years.

Richie refused to blink again. He didn't want the reality where he was old because Eddie was dead.

"Mike, I can't leave Eddie again. He's right here."

"Eddie is dead."

Mike snapped in his face and Richie blinked involuntarily. Eddie was an older man. He had a wedding ring on his left hand.

"No, he's not."

"Richie, open your eyes."

Eddie was missing an arm. Blood was everywhere.

Eddie was dead.

And then he was gone.

Richie felt like his world had been ripped away from him in seconds simply because it had.

"Why did you do that?" His voice was small and weak and vulnerable. It was sad.

"Rich, we've been looking for you for days. It's a miracle and a half you aren't dead."

Mike's words went in one of Richie's ears and out the other.

"Why did you  _do_  that? I was just about to tell him!"

Mike's eyes grew with worry.

"Richie, you've been gone for two weeks. No one has seen you in seventeen days."

He was deathly serious, and it shook Richie to his core.

"What?"

"You left one day. Just disappeared. Never took your stuff or said goodbye. No one thought to look out here until now."

"But Mike, it was only a few minutes. There's no way-"

"Open your eyes, Richie!" Mike shouted, his temper flaring up out of no where. Richie had never seen this side of Mike and for good reason too; it was terrifying. "You're stuck in the past! You need to move on! Eddie is dead! Stan is dead! The funeral was two weeks ago and you missed it because you were out here on the verge of death and feeling sorry for yourself!"

Richie blinked. Mike breathed.

"Look, I just need you to take this into perspective. You knew Eddie as a kid and then again for, what, a couple days? He's gone. And you'll live. You'll go back to California and you'll keep living your life. You'll-"

"Mike, I don't think you understand. The only reason I stopped loving him was because I forgot. I forgot because of that goddamn  _thing_  in the sewers. It's gone now. So I won't forget again. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if I hadn't forgot, then he and I would have still been friends. Maybe we could have gotten to be more, I dunno. But at least I'd know his name."

Mike stayed silent for a long moment.

"I'll get you a ticket back to Beverly Hills and you can be out of here by nine."

"But-"

"It's not healthy. I won't let you stay here any longer. You're  _killing_ your self."

Richie didn't comment. The silence hung over them like a thick fog until Richie asked an inevitable question

"Where is he?"

"Next to his mom."

~

Richie and Mike stood in front of a grave. Bits of grass were beginning to grow over the barren dirt, but it wouldn't be totally covered for some time.

"I never even got to tell him," Richie uttered, his voice on the verge of cracking. His face was dry.

"He loved you too, y'know."

"But I never told him that I do."

Mike hesitated before saying, "want me to leave you guys alone?"

"Just for a minute, yeah. This is as close as I'll ever get."

Mike walked away. Richie saw him go down the street without once looking back. They wouldn't see each other until Mike drove Richie to the airport in two hours.

"Hey, Eds."

No reply.

_Shocker._

The tombstone read,

_Edward "Eddie" Kaspbrak_

_1946-1985_

_A Loving Son, Husband, and Friend_

Richie could have laughed.

"You deserve more than a standard epitaph, Eds. So unlike you. Too basic."

He sat down and put his back to the stone, leaning up against it.

"Y'know, I was gonna bring flowers, but then I thought that was too cheesy and stupid, but now I wish I had something to give you besides this years-too-late confession of undying love.

"God, I hate the way that sounds. It's so pretentious. You deserve something classier."

Richie looked down and felt his eyes well up.

"I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't met you. I dunno where or who I'd be. Definitely not the same."

Richie looked to the sky, and the sky was blank.

"Jesus, Eds, only you could still make me cry when you're six feet under. Well, more than six feet."

Richie gave an empty laugh.

"Do you remember when we first kissed? Or more accurately, when I kissed you? We couldn't have been a day over eleven. I thought you were the prettiest little thing I had ever seen. You wore a striped shirt tucked into your shorts with your hair parted all perfectly. You said you hated your hair and asked me to fix it. I picked up some leaves and threw them at you and they all got stuck in different places. The teacher said I was being mean and made me help you clean up in the bathroom. You called me an idiot and I called you cute. I cupped my hands, filled them with water from the sink and then dumped it on your head. You got upset and at the time I didn't understand why, but now I know that I was a little shit. I still kinda am.

"Anyway, I told you I was gonna do your hair like I did mine and you said my hair was ugly. Two days later I shaved it all off. I was bald for almost a year. I dunno if I ever told you why I shaved it off, but that's why. You called me ugly, Eds.

"After I got you wet, I didn't see you for a while. It wasn't until right before we went home that I saw you. Your hair was all curly and loose. It was a little odd 'cause it wasn't cut to be loose and curly, but I loved it. Before we got on our bikes, I kissed you real quick and called you cute. You beeped me, and so did Bill."

Richie let the memories pour. He wasn't even sure if what he was saying made complete sense, or any sense at all, but he kept talking and saying what needed to be said.

"I realized I liked you when Henry Bowers called me a four-eyed faggot for the ten thousandth time. He called you a girly boy. He was chasing us home and screamed at me. Said he was gonna kill me. You too. Ironic, huh? You were the one to finish him off in the end.

"So I got inside and pulled out our massive dictionary Went kept on our dusty bookshelf. I tried to look up what the hell faggot meant because it was hard to insult Bowers back when I didn't know what he was saying. But no luck. I wound up going to the library to find an even bigger dictionary and found it there. It said it was an offensive term for a male homosexual. Another word I didn't know. So I looked that one up and it was a person romantically and or sexually attracted to a person of the same sex.

"That was eye-opening for me. As I walked home, I thought about it. Did I like boys? Long story short, I figured out I did. You, specifically. I still do. I asked my mom if it was bad for me to like boys and she screamed at me, completely horrified. I never did tell my dad.

"I was Ben who helped me figure out I was in love. We were maybe sixteen and he and I were sitting around at the Quarry waiting for the rest of you to show up. You, Bill, Bev, Mike and... and Stan. I asked him how he was doing with Beverly. Asked what he was gonna do for their six month anniversary. He went off on this big rant about all the cute lovey-dovey shit he had planned and then threw the question back at me. He asked when I was gonna ask you out. I immediatly deflected it with a shitty joke and after we talked for a while, he asked if I was in love. I asked what it felt like and he told me. I thought about it all day, but it didn't really sink in until we walked back to your place in the rain. You fell asleep on my shoulder and then I knew. I loved you.

"I never really stopped loving you, Eds. I just forgot. I forgot what loving you felt like. I forgot your name and your face and your quirks and your body. But now I remember. I remember the laughs we shared and the moments we had where time stood still.

"When I asked you to the prom, that was real for me. When I picked you up in my god-awful pickup and gave you roses, that was real for me. When I asked you to slow dance, that was real. When I kissed you in the bathroom stall after you had a panic attack, that was real. When I helped you get off in the back of my truck 'cause you told me you were sexually repressed, that was real! It was always real to me, Eddie! When you came to school with a girl on your arm, I was broken! For a couple hours there, you tricked me into thinking that we  _had_  something! You were either too dense or too uncaring to see that I  _loved_  you! When you told me not just a couple days ago that you were married, I  _died_  on the inside! I want to love you, but you make it so hard! I love your hair that you hate and your eyes that look like honey and your lips that taste like cherry chapstick and your attitude that's always bossy and your mouth that never has clean words and your soft side that can never get enough of mine and  _you!_

"Goddamit, Eddie _I love you!_ Why can't you be here to say it back?! I'm talking to an empty casket because I don't even know where your body is anymore! I hate you, Eddie! I hate that you're not alive and you died! Why did you do that?!  _I_ would have taken the hit,  _I_  would have bled out on the floor, and  _I_  would have died, but  _no!_ You had to go and play the hero! You died for us and I hate that about you! Why can't you be more selfish? Why can't you-"

Richie couldn't keep going. He cried loud and ugly. His nose was running and his face was red. His eyes were bloodshot and his body was trembling. It was near impossible to get a steady stream of words out.

"It's just-... I  _miss_  you. I don't wanna forget again. I want you back and... and I wanna live with you. I wanna go through, through life with you. Buh-but I  _can't_. I'm sad and I'm lonely and you're  _dead_."

Richie stood up, dusting off the dirt on his jeans. It was dark and he hadn't even watched the sun go down. He had been out here for a lot longer than he thought he had been.

"But that's just how it is, I guess. No amount of sobbing is gonna change anything. I came here to tell you how I feel and I did that. Now I'm gonna leave and probably never come back. But  _God,_  I would've given anything for just one more hour with you. Just one. I don't know what I would have done with it, but there are no simple answers to the hard things in life, am I right?

"I heard somewhere that old men get better with age, but I guess we'll never really find out if that's true or not.

"I'll see you on the other side, okay Eds? Wait for me; I'll be there soon."


End file.
